Decker eyed Lancaster, who was overseeing the forensic team. Two uniformed officers were posted outside the door looking bored and tired. Jamison, leaning against another wall, watched the proceedings with interest.
Lancaster finally came over to Decker, and Jamison quickly joined them.
“We’ve taken statements. No one heard anything, and no one saw anything.”
“Just like when Hawkins went to the Richardses’ home and murdered them,” said Decker.
“The rooms on either side of this one are unoccupied. And if the perp used a suppressor can on the gun?”
“When I lived here there was a rear door that never properly locked,” said Decker. “The killer could have come and gone that way and the front-desk person wouldn’t have seen them.”
“I’ll have that checked out. Hawkins’s door was locked until you popped it.”
“Presumably he let in the person who killed him,” said Jamison. “And these doors automatically lock on the way out. Time of death?”
“ME’s prelim is between eleven and midnight.”
Decker checked his watch. “Which means we didn’t miss them by much. If we had come here first instead of the Richardses’ place?”
“Hindsight is absolutely perfect,” noted Lancaster.
“Decker?”
He turned to look down at the woman in blue scrubs and booties. She was one of the crime scene techs. She was in her midthirties, red-haired and lanky, with sprinkles of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
“Kelly Fairweather,” he said.
She smiled. “Hey, you remembered me.”
“That’s pretty much a given,” said Decker, without a trace of irony.
Fairweather looked over at the dead man. “Well, I remember him,” she said.
Lancaster joined them. “That’s right, you worked the Richards crime scene.”
“My first year doing this. Four homicides and two of them kids. It was quite an introduction to the job. So, what are you doing here, Decker?”
“Just trying to figure things out.”
“Good luck with that. But I always thought Hawkins should’ve gotten the needle for what he did. I know that doesn’t excuse what happened here.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Lancaster firmly.
Fairweather took that as a not-so-subtle nudge to move on. “Well, good seeing you, Decker.”
As she moved away, Decker walked over to stand directly in front of the dead man, who still sat there like a statue. Lancaster and Jamison joined him.
Decker said, “So the shooter walks up to Hawkins, who’s sitting in this chair, presses the gun against his forehead, and pulls the trigger.” He looked around. “And no sign of a struggle?”
“Maybe he was asleep,” suggested Lancaster.
“After letting the person in, the guy sits down in a chair and dozes off?” said Jamison.
Decker said, “He told us he was taking drugs. Did you find any?”
Lancaster shook her head. “Nothing in here or the bathroom. No discarded wrappers or empty pill bottles. Just a small duffel of clothes, a few bucks in his wallet. The post will show if he had anything in his system.”
Decker looked around the room again, taking in every detail and imprinting it on his memory. He had already done this, but decided to do it again. His memory had been having a few hiccups of late and he didn’t want to take a chance that he had missed something. It was like printing out a second copy of a photo.
Hawkins’s yellowing skin had given way to a translucent paleness. Death did that to you, what with the stoppage of blood flow. At least the cancer was no longer a factor for the man. With death it had immediately stopped eating away at Hawkins’s innards. Decker figured a fast bullet was preferable to a slow, painful death. But it was still murder.
“So, motives and possible suspects?” said Lancaster.
“Not to state the obvious, but does Susan Richards still live in the area?” asked Decker.
“Yes, she does.”
“That would be my starting point,” said Decker.
Lancaster checked her watch. “I’ll have her picked up and taken to the station. We can interview her there.”
“So, you want us involved?” said a surprised Jamison.
“In for a dime,” replied Lancaster.
“The thing is, we have a day job,” said Jamison. “Which often extends into nights.”
“I can call Bogart,” said Decker. Ross Bogart was the veteran FBI agent who headed up the task force of which Decker and Jamison were members.
“So, you really want to stay and dive into this?” asked Jamison warily.
“Do I have a choice?” asked Decker.
“You always have a choice,” said Lancaster, gazing knowingly at Decker. “But I think I know what that choice will be.”
Jamison said, “Decker, have you really thought this through?”
He indicated the corpse and said forcefully, “This is significant. The guy comes to town saying he’s innocent and approaches me and Lancaster to prove him right. Now somebody just killed him.”
“Well, like you just suggested, it might be Susan Richards, the widow of the man Hawkins was convicted of murdering.”
“It might, and it might not.”
Decker turned and walked out.
Lancaster looked at Jamison. “Well, some things never change. Like him.”
“Tell me about it,” replied Jamison wearily.
Chapter 5
ROSS BOGART SAID, “This is unacceptable, Decker. And I mean totally unacceptable.”
Decker was on his phone, heading to the Burlington police station.
“I understand how you could think that, Ross.”
“There’s no understanding anything. I let you go rogue once before with the Melvin Mars case. And then when you wanted to stay back in Baronville and work the case there because it was connected to Alex’s family. But I can’t let you go off willy-nilly whenever you feel like it.”
“This is different,” said Decker.
“You say that every time,” barked Bogart. “You’ve not only blown up the exception to the rule, you’ve blown up the rule. The bottom line is you work for the FBI.”
“I’m sorry, Ross. This is my hometown. I can’t turn my back on it.”
“You’ve made your choice, then?”
“Yes.”
“Then you force me to make mine.”
“This is all me. Alex has nothing to do with it.”
“I’ll deal with Special Agent Jamison separately.”
The line went dead.
Decker slowly put the phone away. It seemed that his days at the FBI were numbered.
He looked over at Lancaster, who was in the car with him.
“Problems?” she said.
“There are always problems.”
They drove on.
* * *
Susan Richards was not pleased. “You’re shitting me, right? You think I killed that son of a bitch? I wish I had.”
Decker and Lancaster had just walked into the interrogation room at police headquarters. Jamison had gone back to her hotel because Decker had not received authorization from Bogart to work on the case. And that permission obviously would not be forthcoming. Bogart had probably already contacted her.